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Monday, April 25, 2011

Well, looks like we're in for a rainy week here in my neck of the woods (But no snow YAY!). Hope it's a little sunnier where you are, but if not how'z about a little chuckle for a dreary day courtesy of RunSis. She sent me this website a few weeks back to check out, but while in the middle of a serious battle with my own...um...stuff?...being ruined I was pre-occupied.

Now, I'm seriously considering sending in a picture of Tiger Toddler's destruction. Although it'd have to be two pictures, one of her completely barren room (there's nothing in that child's room except a twin mattress on the floor, she's literally destroyed, climbed or gotten into every single solitary thing that used to be in there. So it's all been removed. Keep in mind this is the same kid who's footed pajamas go on backwards every night, so she can't escape them and thus have access to her diaper and an endless amount of art supplies.) The second picture would be of the bottom of her window sill. The caption would read something to the effect of: "What do you do when there's nothing left in your room to destroy? You eat your window sill." The child has literally eaten the bottom of her windowsill, paint, wood, and all. Unfortunately, since it was the bottom we didn't notice right away either. I caught her mid-act one night when I peeked in on her thinking she was asleep. But don't worry, if I hadn't caught the culprit in the middle of the crime, I probably would have figured it out a few days later...when she pooped out wood. Swear.

But anyway, until I get around to taking the photos of my own damaged woodwork. Check out what these little angels have gotten themselves into: http://www.shitmykidsruined.com/ Just be careful not to look at it with your little tykes around. My goal here is to spread a laugh, NOT any ideas.

P.S. Looks like they're on Facebook and Twitter too if you're looking for a daily giggle.

P.P.S. If you've got something funny (family friendlyish please) you'd like to submit, please send it to me at runfastmommy@gmail.com and I'll send a little link love back your way.

Monday, April 18, 2011

Although, I suppose now that I think of it “times” is a little on the redundant side. But that’s beside the point.

I’m really looking for a little support on this one ladies. I mean if we unite as runners on this one, I think we can literally change the face of racing for the better, forever. But perhaps, I should explain.

Many of you know I’m coaching. And like any coach, my runners and I talk the typical, mileage, pace, shoes, course, etc. But with me that’s not all you get. Oh no. Far from it. If my runners have a question, they ask it. No topic is off limits, as one of my runners (who shall heretofore be referred to as the Kilometer Queen, since she’s got a fantastic goal for the year to run a ridiculous number of kilometers) found out last week when we talked pee. (Yes, you read that right. We talked pee.)

Here’s the thing. We’ve all gotta do it and unfortunately sometimes we’ve gotta do it during a race and nobody, at least not the Kilometer Queen nor myself, want to lose precious seconds on race day taking care of business. I mean, really, am I to blame if mother nature calls? Or better yet, am I to blame if mother nature calls OTHER runners thus creating a massive line at the nearest available port-a-potty? I think not.

And until race directors around the country not only provide an abundance of port-a-potties so that they are wait free along the race course, but also strategically place timing mats in front of each one so that should you be forced to take a pit stop, that stop does not negatively affect your chip time, I suggest we take matters into our own hands.

We have chip times. We have gun times. Let’s make a third part of our generally accepted running vernacular BAT times. Bathroom Adjusted Times …Times (see I told you it was redundant). Just simply take a split for the time you take an emergency bathroom stop. Add those splits together at the end of your race and subtract the total from your finishing time. And voila! You have your bat time.

Now, I know I know. Some of you are already voicing your objections. What if somebody takes a REALLY long bathroom stop?Like 45 minutes at the 1/2 way mark? Or what if somebody takes multiple bathroom breaks? Maybe they run pot to pot? And you’re right. We’d probably have to work out some generally agreed upon guidelines for applying the bat times (feel free to leave your suggested bat time guidelines in the comments). But I think you get the gist right? Think about it. Mull it over. I don’t need your official answer on support today (or ever actually). Just an idea. A work in progress if you will. But next time your mid-race and you’ve really got to go, I bet you’ll consider taking a split

P.S. For those of you who are a FB fan, Tiger Toddler seems to be doing just fine. She took a little bit of a tumble last Friday afternoon and has since been splinted with a suspected wrist fracture and possible elbow dislocation since (told you she was a tiger! You all thought I was exaggerating didn’t you?). Apparently, however what was first called suspicious by the urgent care doc, has been declared clean by the radiologist. So she was freed from her splint today and while she’s still favoring it a bit, she’s doing much much better.

P.P.S. For those of you who were interested, I did get around posting the new Spring Specials today on my coaching site www.runningcoachformoms.com And in case any of you were still mulling around that New Years Resolution special, I’ll leave that coupon code active for the rest of the month.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

And of course, for those of you who’ve been following along, a word on eye temperature.

So let’s get The Bad out of the way first shall we?

I haven’t really been blogging. That you knew. What you didn’t know is that besides not blogging, I have also not been running (yes, yes I can hear all of your cumulative gasps from this side of the computer screen.) It’s time to come clean folks. I haven’t run in nearly 3 months. **SIGH**

Now, I have a good reason for this. And that, my friends, is the secret I’ve been keeping. I actually wanted to tell you all much much sooner. I even wrote a blog post 3 months ago to do just that. But one thing led to another and the secret went from good, to good and kind of scary so it felt kind of weird to talk about. But now…let’s see here…now, it’s still good and I honestly have no idea what else to think. So I’m just really not going to think about it. ‘Cause that’s the way I roll when something’s entirely out of my hands. I’m just going to focus on the good part. It’s much more fun :-)

So ya ready for me to spill it or what? I do believe I have officially stalled long enough and we’re far enough down in the post that all you FB followers had to click over to see what the secret is (neener neener) so ok…here goes nothing:

I’m pregnant!

Baby #3, will be making his or her arrival early fall sometime. And we are all very excited over here! Particularly, the Little Miss, who’s already decided we’ll be having another girl and FULL of questions I seriously do NOT know how to answer (so we’re settling on yes, babies do come out of mommy’s tummy through her belly button kind of like an explosion…with sparkles).

And the weird part, now this is the part I’m not really sure exactly how much I should or should not be sharing. But then again, we’re runners here and we’re nothing if not, well, bodily (sweat, urine color, bloody trail wounds, blister size, and on and on it goes.) Still, I’ll tread lightly.

Some of you running mama studs out there, I’m sure have the question mulling around in your head, “Ok, Yay for you! You’re pregnant! But why not run anyway?” And this is a valid question. I am all for moms running while pregnant, in fact, I fully intended on being one of those moms. However, sometimes things don’t go as planned and one thing you need to be particularly careful of if you do decide to continue running while pregnant, is what your body is telling you.

My body happened to contract some kind of upper respiratory virus right at the beginning of my pregnancy (now, we know why I couldn’t shake that sucker forever don’t we?). So I decided to give myself a break and some time off running while I got over it.

While still at the tail end of that virus, but just about ready to suck it up and get back on the treadmill, I had my first OBGYN visit where I got to see my sweet little peanut, hear the heartbeat and learn that in my doctor’s words, “I’ve got some interesting things going on in there.” Basically, the kiddo has company and we’re not exactly sure what it is (wait…does that make me sound like I’m some kind of alien host from a sci-fi flick or something, that’s totally not what I meant).

I’ll spare you all the details and skip to where we are now. Whatever it is that’s decided to join my little one, is pretty big, but it doesn’t seem to be growing. So it’s possible, even likely, that I’ll go through the whole pregnancy and we won’t have to do a thing. It could be a cyst, it could be a tumor, my OBGYN even mentioned that it closely resembles the tissue of my uterus, something like a 2nd uterus. Which is possible. Some women do actually have 2, but generally speaking, they’re born that way and you’d think somebody would have noticed a spare uterus on me, oh I don’t know, during one of my other pregnancies? (Leave it to me to be carrying a little diva who demands her own uterus. “Who me? You expect me to develop in a USED uterus. Puh lease. I don’t think so.”) So anyway, the 2nd uterus, is highly unlikely. We’re probably looking at either a cyst or a tumor, either way, we’re keeping an eye on it and we’ll see.

Now, my OBGYN did not tell me not to run. In fact, what he said was at least at this point, I could continue. But I’ll admit it, the unidentified tag-a-long had me a little worried. Then, I got sick again, fluish. Then, I started to have a little bit of bleeding. And at that point, I pretty much just decided that this was perhaps God’s way of telling me to slow down and walk (for now). As one of my coaching clients told me, “Them’s the breaks when you’re carrying a life inside you.” Correctomundo. And just like I do whatever I can to keep my two little girlies running around here safe, so too am I going to play it safe with this little one. Not that I’ve had much choice in the matter anyway, I’ve basically had one virus or another since February (currently sinus infection).

So between the pregnancy fun, one sickness after another, and the hot eyes, that’d be my excuse for not hanging around on my blog much.

Wait…what’s that? The hot eyes? Ah, yes. I haven’t explained that yet. When I get really really really tired, my eyes don’t just get heavy, they get hot and I can barely keep them open (which makes it really hard to type). And my eyes have been hot ALOT lately. Now RunSis tells me I’m crazy and that she has no idea what I’m talking about, but come on people! Someone else out there has to know about hot eyes. I can’t possibly be the only one. Doesn’t anyone else out there get hot eyes?

And…that’s my update. The good, the bad, the weird, and the secret. I’d love to chat a little bit longer, but I can feel the temperature in my eyes starting to rise a little already. I will however give you my solemn oath to post a little more often, so that when I do write it doesn’t have to cover 3 months and take 9 hours to read. And I’ve actually got one already to go in my head with regards to BAT times. You know BAT times right? Gun times, Chip times, BAT times. Not ringing any bells? Huh. I thought everybody knew about those, but then again, I was apparently wrong about the eyes so…..

P.S. For those of you who have been inquiring, YES! I am still coaching online. My site is www.runningcoachformoms.com And yes, that New Year’s Special is still good (mostly because I haven’t gotten around to changing it, but FYI I plan on posting a new spring special next week.)

P.P.S. For those of you who have been emailing me, if I haven’t gotten back to you already, I promise I will! I’m still playing a little catch up here. I love hearing from you all!

RunNana-My mom, a junior high teacher, and breast cancer survivor who started running when she was 54. You'll meet her in the comments. She reads every single post I write. Probably to make sure I stay out of trouble.

Mobile Mile Marker, Mighty Mole Man, Papa- My dad, who last year rode his bicycle 100 miles (at once) to see if he could, but's also gracious enough to lolligag around with me oh his bike, mark the miles and chase the pervs away on my long runs

RunSis- The one & only, my little sis. Marathoner in the making & the mom I hope to one day grow up to be